Labour accused of exaggerating tax advantages of Jeremy Hunt’s pension reform

Labour has been accused of exaggerating the advantages for the nicely off stemming from chancellor Jeremy Hunt’s Price range transfer to scrap the £1.1mn lifetime allowance on tax-free pension contributions.

Shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves vowed to reverse Hunt’s choice to abolish the lifetime allowance, which he justified on the grounds it could incentivise older employees to remain of their jobs, notably NHS docs and consultants.

Labour stated in a press launch on Thursday that ending the lifetime allowance “may see the richest one per cent of these accessing their pensions subsequent yr web a median of £45,000”.

It went on to say that “folks with greater than £1.4mn of their pension pot are in a position to pay as much as £150,000 much less in tax”.

Nonetheless, specialists stated this instance by Labour, defined in a footnote in its press launch, exaggerated the obtainable tax financial savings for the nicely off.

David Robbins, director at WTW, an expert providers agency, calculated the tax saving for somebody with a £1.4mn pot will likely be “lower than one-third as huge as [Labour] say”.

He added that in making its calculation, it appeared Labour had utilized “the fallacious change in tax price to the fallacious a part of the pension pot”.

As a substitute of the tax financial savings being £150,000 it could be within the area of £29,000 to £47,000, Robbins stated.

Kay Ingram, a chartered monetary planner, stated Labour in its press launch “appears to magnify the tax saving for the person”.

“It’s a pity that the opposition has chosen to assault this proposed change, with out developing with an alternate means for eradicating sudden tax payments and the disincentive to remain in work, which the present tax regime has created,” she added.

Labour, which on Thursday stated it could search to maintain docs in work by making a focused scheme coping with their pension points, refused to touch upon the obvious error in its press launch.

But it surely tacitly accepted a mistake by saying on Friday that it was now utilizing a special instance from the Decision Basis, a think-tank, suggesting somebody with a £2mn pension pot would safe a tax saving of virtually £250,000.

The obvious error in Labour’s press launch follows days of confusion in regards to the nuances of sophisticated pension tax guidelines, and the way folks is perhaps affected by proposals set out by the federal government and Labour.

Chris Etherington, accomplice at RSM, an accounting agency, stated Labour’s calculation of a supposed £150,000 tax saving seemed prefer it was “based mostly on a muddled understanding of how the pension tax guidelines function”.

He added it was tough to see how the Decision Basis had calculated its figures.

In addition to scrapping the lifetime allowance, Hunt proposed rising the annual tax-free pension contributions restrict from £40,000 to £60,000, and the Price range paperwork estimated his proposals would value the federal government £1.1bn by 2028.

The Workplace for Price range Duty, the fiscal watchdog, has estimated the proposals may result in 15,000 folks returning to work.

However Nimesh Shah, chief govt of Blick Rothenberg, one other accounting agency, stated Labour’s knee-jerk response to Hunt’s Price range announcement was “not useful” as it could considerably have an effect on taxpayer behaviour within the run-up to the following election.

“It may even imply folks considerably over-contributing to their pensions on this window to lock-in the profit now, as Labour would wish to introduce one other type of mounted safety in the event that they observe via with this,” he added.